With Narendra Modi's remarks on Sohrabuddin creating a furore ahead of Assembly polls, BJP sought to downplay the Gujarat Chief Minister's controversial comments.
NEW DELHI: With Narendra Modi's remarks on Sohrabuddin creating a furore ahead of Assembly polls, BJP sought to downplay the Gujarat Chief Minister's controversial comments on Wednesday by saying his statement has been distorted.
Faced with several questions on Modi's comments at a press conference here, senior leader V K Malhotra asserted the Chief Minister did not take the name of Sohrabuddin and his statement was general in nature.
"His statement has been distorted.... He didn't say it the way it has been presented," the party's Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha claimed.
"What he (Modi) meant was that if a terrorist, who is planning to target some prominent persons, is killed in an encounter with police what is wrong in that," Malhotra said defending the party's poll mascot in Gujarat.
Addressing an election rally in south Gujarat on Tuesday Modi, who has been talking of development as a election issue, sought to play the communal card by justifying the killing of Sohrabuddin, saying 'he has got what he deserved'.
The Gujarat government had earlier admitted in the Supreme Court that Sohrabuddin was killed in a fake encounter by the Gujarat police.
Asked why the BJP is defending Modi while it has condemned the Nandigram violence, Malhotra said the party was against killing of innocents not terrorists.
Malhotra also criticised induction of Muslims in the Army and Paramilitary forces through special drive claiming that it gives terrorists a chance to penetrate into armed forces.
"We have no objections to induction of Muslims on merit. But we are against special drive," he said and claimed that the National Security Advisor had also spoken of ISI attempts to penetrate into the Army.
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